The Atlantic

Escaping Poverty Requires Almost 20 Years With Nearly Nothing Going Wrong

The MIT economist Peter Temin argues that economic inequality results in two distinct classes. And only one of them has any power.
Source: Keith Bedford / Reuters

A lot of factors have contributed to American inequality: slavery, economic policy, technological change, the power of lobbying, globalization, and so on. In their wake, what’s left?

That’s the question at the heart of a new book, , by Peter Temin, an economist from MIT. Temin argues that, following decades of growing inequality, America is now left with what is more or less a two-class system: one small, predominantly white upper class that wields a disproportionate

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